1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic shopping system, wherein products are bought and sold using a computer and a telecommunications network.
2. Description of Related Art
An electronic shopping system is known as one aspect of a commercial transaction that does not rely on the physical distribution. An electronic shopping system is a system for buying and selling products using, for example, the Internet or some other telecommunications network and a computer.
With an electronic shopping system, there are cases, in which a discount service is provided, similar to ordinary commercial transactions of stores and the like. Discount service refers to a merchant reducing the selling price of a product in accordance with fixed conditions.
A time service system, volume count system, and point service system, and the like are known as discount services provided by electronic shopping systems. A time service system is a system, wherein a merchant provides a discount service to a customer, who purchases a specified product at a specified time or during a specified time period. A volume count system is a system, wherein a merchant provides a discount service to a customer, who purchases more than a specified quantity of a specified product at the same time. And a point service system is a system, wherein points corresponding to a purchase price or the like are provided to a customer each time he purchases a product, and a discount service of a value that corresponds to the total number of points is provided to the customer.
An electronic shopping system that employs a time service system and a volume count system can readily provide a discount service in accordance with setting in the merchant computer the targeted time or time period, the targeted product, and the purchase quantity which constitute the criteria. However, a system that employs these systems provides a uniform discount service to all customers, and is not capable of providing a different discount service to each customer.
A point service system can provide a different discount service to each customer. However, in an electronic shopping system that employs this system, the merchant""s computer system has to manage the points of all the customers. In addition, with an electronic shopping system of this system, even if a merchant would like to provide a service which allows a customer to transfer points to another customer, it is difficult to realize because of the large burden of managing the points of all the customers.
An object of the present invention is to provide an electronic shopping system, which is capable of easily and flexibly providing a different discount service to each customer.
Consequently, an electronic shopping system related to the present invention comprises a purchasing system, having means for storing in memory discount coupons constituted of electronic data, and means for transmitting to a telecommunications network a discount coupon and data for ordering a product; and a selling system, having means for receiving this discount coupon and this ordering data from a telecommunications network, and means for authenticating the validity of the discount coupon.
The present invention makes possible an easy and flexible discount service in accordance with realizing on an electronic shopping system a discount service that makes use of a discount coupon.